[applause] isolate our chairman, steve israel, as i did yesterday, for just being a spectacular field marshal in all of this. and i commend all of my colleagues, my code leaders, steny hoyer, some members of the leadership, chris van hollen, the list goes on and on, and all of the women standing here who traveled into districts. so we were thinking that it was possible, and that was. i would say one disappointment that i had was that message was at stake, was so misrepresented by the republicans that the public was confused. people would say welcome why are the democrats wanting to commit. we worked. democrats use savings of medicare to extend it for another decade, to provide benefits immediately, immediately for seniors right now. republicans took that same money and gave tax cuts to the rich, and that was the message that outside money spent a fortune to misrepresent. and that is why the election of barack obama was so very, very important to protect medicare, even the we could not get the majority. we knew what he wants, that many of the issues, affordable care, medicare, et ceter